Indoor climate for comfortable sleep, considering heat and moisture transfer between the room, bedding and human body : Optimal control of an air-conditioner

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It is difficult to keep a room comfortable for sleeping compared to waking hours, because the indoor climate cannot be voluntarily controlled according to one's heat sensations, during sleep. If a relationship between thermal comfort for the human body and indoor thermal condition while sleeping is established, thermal environment of the room could be regulated according to the relationship to satisfy thermal comfort during sleep. Since thermal sensation cannot be reported while sleeping, however, relationships between thermal sensation and physiological responses or heat transfer between the human body and ambient environment during sleeping haven't been determined yet.Therefore, we proposed a thermal control system, which feeds back the calculated result of thermal sensation during sleep based on a thermal sensation index while awake and resets the target temperature of an air conditioner.In this study, an air control system providing an indoor thermal environment for comfortable sleep is proposed. This system predicts an index for thermal sensation while sleeping. It can feed back the calculated results to reset the target temperature of an air conditioner. In the present study, sleep experiments were carried out during both summer and winter seasons using a young subject by tentatively assuming a comfortable zone of thermal sensation during sleep under this system. The target temperature was well controlled in conjunction with the predicted value of the thermal sensation index, which converged into the comfortable zone with time. A stable time profile of the predicted values for thermal sensation is closely related to no awakening while sleeping and thus a comfortable sleep. Therefore, the proposed air control system that predicts the thermal sensation index could be effective in creating a comfortable indoor climate for sleep.